Don’t Let Your Cloud Migration Become A ‘Clusterf*ck’

Earlier this year, the UK-based bank TSB attempted a major IT migration, a massive project several years in the making. The result was a complete and utter fiasco.

The TSB logo, hearkening back to better days for the bank.

Customers were unable to log into their accounts. Data from some customer accounts appeared in different ones. Obscure technical error messages abounded. Customers overwhelmed call centers to the point that beleaguered call center reps walked off the job.

In an effort to stanch the bleeding, the bank waived tens of millions of pounds’ worth of overdraft fees and increased interest payments to cover customer losses.

At the center of this ill-fated initiative was a migration from a mishmash of legacy apps to a modern suite of applications, in part in the public cloud. Nevertheless, in spite of the noble goal to migrate legacy apps to the cloud, the effort was as one insider described, “a clusterfuck in the making.”

How could such an effort go so wrong? And perhaps more to the point, how can you avoid your cloud migration suffering a similar fate?

Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, IBM and Skytap are Intellyx customers. None of the other organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Dan Foy.